|
|
CAD Standards: Strategies for Success
23 Sep, 2011 By: Robert GreenOnce you've developed these guidelines, how can you convince your users to follow them?
Editor's Note: This article was originally published in the Summer 2011 issue of Cadalyst magazine.
If making CAD standards work were as easy as creating a document or sending out an e-mail, none of us would have standards problems, would we? However, experience has taught me that getting users to abide by standards is a complex process that requires equal parts technical, motivational, and psychological expertise. In this column, I’ll share some standards implementation strategies that have worked well for me, in hopes that you can adopt them for your workplace and achieve positive results.
What Not to Do
As with most things in management, your first goal is to not make things worse than they already are by adopting an approach that won’t work. I’ve witnessed many aborted attempts at establishing CAD standards, and almost all of them fell into one of these categories:
The all-at-once approach. Here, CAD managers jump into CAD standards with a goal of getting everything done immediately, overwhelming users with a barrage of documentation, workflow changes, and long training sessions shoehorned into existing job schedules.
The doing-without-telling approach. Surprising users or senior management with an abrupt effort to standardize invariably leads to tension, objections, and resistance. Believe me when I say that you’ll spend more time trying to explain after the fact than if you had been up front about your efforts in the first place.
The one-e-mail-and-it’s-solved approach. If you can send out an e-mail with a standards document attached and all your users follow your directions, you’re a much better CAD manager than I am. In my experience, you might as well not even bother.
Instead, Try the Fix-It Approach
Now you know what won’t work — but what will do the trick? Follow this straightforward, fix-it approach and you’ll have much better success implementing standards.
In using this approach, you’re essentially identifying the CAD-related problems that meet two criteria: they make life miserable for your CAD users, and they are problems that you can actually fix. You then deliver your proposed solution and sell it to users by explaining how it will make their lives easier and save them time. After you have the users’ attention, you offer some training that not only explains how to use the new standards, but also demonstrates their benefits. Once you get to this point, chances are very high that your users will adopt your solution as a new standard.
Find fixable problems. Want to find the problems that you can fix with standards? Look for the annoying everyday issues that users complain about all the time. Examples include problems related to plotting; file management; use of templates; and creating standard content such as blocks, families, and components. What makes a problem fixable is that you can overcome it using tools you already have in your CAD environment so you don’t have to purchase new hardware, software, or training materials. Fixable problems are almost always usability issues akin to these rather than issues that require heavy spending, such as buying new computers or plotters. Spend your time fixing what you can actually fix, and your users will appreciate your efforts!
Ease of use rules! One of the points I stress when formulating a CAD standard, or any type of standard procedure, is that it has to be easy to use. Users should perceive standards as tools that help them accomplish their work in fewer steps, so explain to all that standards will make their jobs easier via better, cleaner processes. Standards should not increase the steps required in a process or build bureaucratic barriers.
1 2
|
|
AutoCAD Tips!
Autodesk Technical Evangelist Lynn Allen guides you through a different AutoCAD feature in every edition of her popular "Circles and Lines" tutorial series. For even more AutoCAD how-to, check out Lynn's quick tips in the Cadalyst Video Gallery. Subscribe to Cadalyst's Tips & Tricks Tuesdays free e-newsletter and we'll notify you every time a new video tip is available. All exclusively from Cadalyst! |
|
